INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL FOR INNOVATIVE RESEARCH IN MULTIDISCIPLINARY FIELD

Abstract:  Financial influencers, or finfluencers, have become a major source of mutual fund information for young Indian investors. To protect investors, the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) allows only registered entities to give investment advice and expects registered finfluencers to display their registration details. This paper studies whether a visible SEBI-registered disclosure tag changes the trust that Gen Z places in finfluencers and in mutual funds. Primary data were collected in September 2026 through a structured online questionnaire of 20 questions from 100 respondents (students and working professionals) living in different states of India. The results show that mean trust in a finfluencer rises from 2.85 without the tag to 3.89 with the tag (t = 6.6, p < 0.001), and that the share of respondents with high trust (rating 4 or 5) rises from 30% to 72%. Sixty per cent say they would invest on the recommendation of a SEBI-registered fin fluencer, and 85% want the tag to be mandatory or find it useful. However, only 48% fully understand what the tag means and only 25% always verify the registration number. The paper concludes that the tag is an effective trust signal, but trust is ahead of verification, which calls for stronger investor awareness and a standard, verifiable tag.